STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning
SERIES ONE
A thirty minute Dragon's Den style TV show on Monday to Friday on ITV, in which various people demonstrate products they have invented, and hope to get investment from a trio of panel judges in order to mass market their invention, as well as individual offers from members of the audience. Several contestants usually manage to get fitted into the time slot, and although they are not competing against each other, the stakes are just as high.
And so, in order to pump up those mid-primetime viewing numbers a bit, we have this latest offering from ITV. There's always that little thing everyone wishes had been invented, and there's always that one someone who spots a niche in the market and expounds on a chance to make capital. Here, a selection of canny contestants display an interesting array of clever products, some of which will make you laugh and some you may end up wanting yourself.
It's all hosted by Brian Conley, who's at that lazy stage in his career now where he just sits back and hosts a nice, easy game show, quipping off the occasional (probably pre-written) silly one liner, but with a barely contained urge to be back in his glory days, in a format where he was the main star of the show rather than little more than background fodder. Mostly, it's just Dragon's Den lite, how the show might have been conceived if it was meant for cuddly little grannies rather than a more ravenous primetime audience.
It is what it is, and really nothing more. The contestants might be trying to flog their wares, but being brought as a show, it's like being flogged a latte. ***
